Book Review - Snuff by Terry Pratchett Doubleday, £18.99

TERRY Pratchett has a way with words. Like the children’s entertainer with the balloons he can take a familiar phrase and with a few deft twists create a new plaything better than all the contents of your party bag.

To perform that trick once or twice is good. To sustain it throughout a whole book is remarkable. To keep it fresh into the 39th volume of a series deserves a knighthood.

Snuff is Pratchett’s 50th novel. It is also his most recent foray into the Discworld series, a literary phenomenon that has been going strong for 28 years now.

The story follows one of Discworld’s best established characters, policeman Sam Vimes, into fresh territory. With wife and son on hand, Vimes experiences his first holiday in the countryside.

The Ankh-Morpork police force supply most of the characters for this tale from a well-stocked inventory of favourites.

Ankh-Morpork ruler Lord Vetinari makes a welcome appearance at the open and close of the book and, with his hidden hand setting events in motion, it can safely be assumed that Commander Vimes will not be idle in his country idyll.

Along with a murder mystery, we are presented with various angles on the topic of poo, an interesting introduction to the goblin race and their peculiarities and some wide-ranging social critique.

It is not unusual for Pratchett to hold the Discworld up as a mirror in which he can satirise everything from the iniquitous to the innocuous in our own world.

In Snuff, the critique is perhaps more heavy-handed. We learn that oppressing minorities (goblins) is bad and that the class system, along with the uneven distribution of wealth, are neither big nor clever.

The main weakness in Snuff is that its hero is so familiar to us that the story lacks tension. We know Commander Vimes will come through.

However, Snuff is entertaining, with all Pratchett’s genius on display. He still makes you care about his creations and, amid all the funnies, he can turn on the pathos.